Sunday, 27 October 2013

Has Beans?

It's been a good year for beans. I picked runner beans today, a whole month later than I would have expected. The September cold snap normally switches them off, but this year they stuttered and picked up again. That's a real bonus.

All the same I decided today to harvest the Canadian Wonder. The weather must be turning soon, and already they have stopped in their tracks. Time to bring them under cover. These are usually classified as Dwarf French beans in the catalogues. I grow them for drying. They don't stay green for long and for seed they produce what we all know as "Red Kidney Beans"

I've got all stages left on the plants:

It is important to dry them off properly, and to do so in the pod. There must be some magic natural chemical in the pods which inhibits mould. It's hard to enough find space. Most are in the plastic covered shelving (the basil has been moved indoors). But for the final push this is a surefire place to dry them off completely.

I love dried beans like that - and especially in a chilli con carne! Some of my beans were re-sprouting inside the pods, even though the pods themselves seemed fully ripe and dry. Like your Runners, my climbing beans ("Cobra") had a late rally and continued to produce pods several weeks later than I had expected.

Nice to hear your crops of beans were good this year. By September I'd almost given up on my Runner beans due to the hot dry weather and baked soil. They recovered somewhat after then. French beans were o.k. early in the year but lacked longevity.